Posted
by
BeauHDon Tuesday December 05, 2017 @01:00AM
from the justice-will-be-served dept.

According to Oregon Live, "A state panel violated a Beaverton man's free speech rights by claiming he had unlawfully used the title 'engineer' and by fining him when he repeatedly challenged Oregon's traffic-signal timing before local media and policymakers, Oregon's attorney general has ruled." From the report: Oregon's Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying unconstitutionally applied state law governing engineering practice to Mats Jarlstrom when he exercised his free speech about traffic lights and described himself as an engineer since he was doing so "in a noncommercial'' setting and not soliciting professional business, the state Department of Justice has conceded. "We have admitted to violating Mr. Jarlstrom's rights,'' said Christina L. Beatty-Walters, senior assistant attorney general, in federal court Monday. The state's regulation of Jarlstrom under engineering practice law "was not narrowly tailored to any compelling state interests,'' she wrote in court papers. The state has pledged the board will not pursue the Beaverton man any further when he's not acting in a commercial or professional manner, and on Monday urged a federal judge to dismiss the case. The state also sent a $500 check to Jarlstrom in August, reimbursing him for the state fine.

Jarlstrom and his lawyers argued that's not good enough. They contend Jarlstrom isn't alone in getting snared by the state board's aggressive and "overbroad'' interpretation of state law. They contend others have been investigated improperly and want the court to look broader at the state law and its administrative rules and declare them unconstitutional. In the alternative, the state law should be restricted to only regulating engineering communications that are made as part of paid employment or a contractual agreement.

Awesome that this guy only wanted the state to stop intentionally killing people and the result is we are now talking about bringing up state officials on charges because while trying to silence him they violated his right to free speech.

No charges for intentionally killing people. No charges for conspiring to silence someone who just wants the government to stop killing people. No charges for intentionally prosecuting someone because their appeal to stop murdering people came between some official and th

Let's suppose for a second that they fired someone over it, justifying it because the OR DOJ found that this employees action were unlawful. Let's suppose that it happened again, do you think the OR DOJ would be as likely to find that it violated the law? Or do you think they might feel some pressure to drag out the investigation, or not investigate at all saying they have higher priorities.

No one is against accountability. But at the same time, harsh penalties can counter-intuitively reduce accountability

Let's suppose that it happened again, do you think the OR DOJ would be as likely to find that it violated the law? Or do you think they might feel some pressure to drag out the investigation, or not investigate at all saying they have higher priorities.

They'd be likedly to find that it violated the law, given there's precedent and absolutely no risk associated with prosecution.

No one is against accountability. But at the same time, harsh penalties can counter-intuitively reduce accountability by either a

They'd be likedly to find that it violated the law, given there's precedent and absolutely no risk associated with prosecution.

No, they wouldn't. Faced with the fact that a finding would lead to a firing, they would hem and haw and point the blame. They would blame the legislature for not making it clear and dither for a few months until everyone forgot.

Forcing people to pull the trigger almost never works in real organizations.

Oh, I see. I thought you were talking about actual organizations that exist in the real world. Instead, it appears you be talking about a fantasy world in which any employee can get a political appointee fir

They'd be likedly to find that it violated the law, given there's precedent and absolutely no risk associated with prosecution.

No, they wouldn't. Faced with the fact that a finding would lead to a firing, they would hem and haw and point the blame. They would blame the legislature for not making it clear and dither for a few months until everyone forgot.

Forcing people to pull the trigger almost never works in real organizations.

If there's literally no paper trail, then the head of the department that made the decision is the one that'll get fired. That gives him or her a pretty strong incentive not to do it.

Oh, I see. I thought you were talking about actual organizations that exist in the real world. Instead, it appears you be talking about a fantasy world in which any employee can get a political appointee fir

I'll admit I was fairly certain they were indeed allowed to fine him when I first read about. I thought it was heavy handed originally though still legal, but I'll eat my humble pie and be rather surprised that the ruling went in his favor. I guess technically speaking he wasn't doing it in a commercial capacity so these laws don't apply. Not sure I agree with them going after anything beyond a review of some of the fines they may have incorrectly levied against individuals under the same circumstance, but we will see how far they take it.

Poor phrasing on my part, I really did mean to acknowledge he wasn't working in a commercial capacity at all so therefore the laws don't actually apply. I had previously been under the assumption that these types of laws applied to engineering work in general (whether commercially done or not) if done for anyone other than yourself, but clearly I was wrong about that.

They did. The laws are designed to protect against someone who is unqualified from claiming to offer engineering as a service or offer their work as certified licensed work.

The person down at the local subway can call himself a "sandwich engineer" if they so choose, but as soon as they start claiming they can design structures, power grids, etc for someone, they're in trouble.

As an example, my good friend couldn't even put "engineering" in the title of his side business because he wasn't going to offer

I didn't notice that he was selling any services. He *is* an engineer, though; any English dictionary says so. And an English barrister in New York would still be a barrister. Or would he have to fill out "unemployed" if US visa applications (not sure about that) require to fill out your profession?

Usually, if a country says that you're an engineer, you are. Apparently Sweden claims he is, so he is.

Does Sweden claim to be a country?:^) I kid.

This comes up for people that have medical certifications from some nations and wish to practice medicine in the USA. Sure, you might have a license to practice medicine from Cuba but that means little here. People that were well recognized surgeons in Cuba will flee the country and if they are lucky they will get a license to drive an ambulance. Those not so lucky will get a license to drive a taxicab.

Considering the fine against him was essentially a SLAPP action, and Oregon has anti-SLAPP legislation, Mr. Jarlstrom should make the argument that an additional fine/restitution against the State Board should be applied in this case. Even if the specific legislation exempts the government, it could be argued by analogy.

Even if the specific legislation exempts the government, it could be argued by analogy.

That's not how law works. When the legislature exempts or excludes application by explicit language, it means that the law cannot be argued to apply by implicit language. It's a form of the 'more specific rule' canon of interpretation.

Remember, the legislature isn't even obligated to pass an anti-SLAPP law. They could repeal the entire thing, so barring extraordinary circumstances, they can chose where and when to have it apply.

I wonder if the handful of morons who keep crying about how I'm such a liar and can never admit when I'm wrong will own up to the fact that I was right about this when it first came up a few months back. You know, with the facts and honest opinion I posted.

In other words, will the idiots stop spreading lies and admit they were wrong? You know, the things they insist I can't do, despite the frequency with which I back up my posts with actual references, come back to post corrections when I learn new information, and thank those who point me in the right direction when I'm wrong.

Will they? Huh? Will they be able to admit they were wrong?

Yes, I know this is off topic and I'm prepared to face the downmods. I just had to call out UnknowingFool, Zero__Kelvin, zifn4b, and the rest of that crew. If I'm expected to admit when I'm wrong (and I do when it happens), I expect the same from them and, well, after the dicking they've been giving me for the past few months, I deserve to gloat once.

In other words, will the idiots stop spreading lies and admit they were wrong? You know, the things they insist I can't do, despite the frequency with which I back up my posts with actual references, come back to post corrections when I learn new information, and thank those who point me in the right direction when I'm wrong.Will they? Huh? Will they be able to admit they were wrong?Yes, I know this is off topic and I'm prepared to face the downmods.

Ironically, you didn't back up your post with actual references. You shoulda linked to the parts where someone on Slashdot touched you.

Cute, though. You managed to make me chuckle a bit; you earned that funny mod, for sure, and I'm just burning some karma for the hell of it. I'm curious if I'll be able to recover from Terrible to Excellent in 24 hours again like I did last time APK and his sock-puppet army came after me; I have to tank it first, though, to find out.

And yes, I recognize that I'm worse than they are at this moment. If I don't give them some legitimate ammunitio

Maybe when a handful of people follow someone from comment section to comment section and consistently give them shit they shouldn't be surprised when they get called out for it. I'm not trying to make friends, here; the people I'm calling out aren't people I'd care to associate with if not for the fact that they follow me around here in an attempt to push my buttons.

More to the point, as I've told the lot of them time and again, I find it entertaining that they think they're anything more to me than a so

How useful is it to make scenes in public places just for the sake of it? You subtract from other people's enjoyment and focus. And no I don't think that being unpleasant/destructive just because you can is anything other than a selfish ego trip.

If that's something that you do regularly, maybe *that* is why people are calling you out. Doing more of it isn't going to get them to stop.

Many years ago I started a small software "engineering" shop with about a half dozen "engineers" (we used to call them that a lot more back then). Naturally, I thought it was a good idea to have "engineering" in the name of the company.

This was fine for quite a while as we never advertised and we certainly would never have even dreamed of passing ourselves off as some kind of structural or electrical engineering company. Then one day I added another phone line to the office and the local telephone company (without my knowledge) put a "free" yellow pages "ad" in their listing for the company...

The Association of Professional Engineers called me... They were good about it, but quite firm that I was absolutely not to do business under that name anymore unless I wanted to be sued out of existence. I changed the name at my inconvenience and expense. For good measure, I also changed my phone numbers.

I honestly had no idea that there was a group of people (with a lot of lawyers) who had a claim over a word in the English language. I still think it's wrong.

When I lived in Texas I saw a bit of an argument over the use of the word "engineer", or even the terms "professional engineer", "licensed engineer". or "certified engineer". What prompted this was the Microsoft certifications that had become popular with the software developers that were coming to the state. People started putting "Microsoft Certified Engineer" on their resume. It turns out that there is an old law in the state that only two people may lawfully call themselves an "engineer". They must

I'm glad the pendulum is swinging the other way towards freer labor markets and less occupational licensing, since study after study shows all it does is hurt those worst off in society who have a valuable skill they can use to earn money, but don't have the money to pay for the license to legally use that skill. Also these licenses mean that we as consumers pay more for the services, be it barbers, plumbers, nurses, doctors, etc.

I don't care how well you did on some state-issued exam which may or may no

Every time some idiot government employee/politician creates a law or regulation that the courts find to be in violation of our Constitution, the court should order them to pay (from their personal money, not state money) for 10 hours of legal training in what the Constitution lets them do and not do.

And those hours should double if they do it again, and double again if they do it a third time (40 hours), until they stop doing it.

Hmm E=1/2 m*v^2. Suppose m is around 1500kg. 20mph = 8.94 m/s. I believe all the units are correct, so multiplying that out yields about 60k joules of energy. Terminal velocity is around 53m/s, so assuming a 62kg human, you get 87k joules of energy if you just went splat from an aircraft.

The first would assume you were between a car and a brick wall and you received all the energy, which is an extreme case. At any rate, I suspect the 20mph one might be survivable, as long as your thrown out of the way, since your only getting a fraction of the available energy. (It could also easily be lethal or crippling.)

I'm too lazy to read all the details about the Oregon man, but if he got a fine for saying he is an engineer, can't we give Trump a fine every time he says believe me, or maybe every time he resorts to juvenile name calling?

Perhaps we could start with a 1 cent fine and double it each time. I'm betting he would be bankrupt within a month.

Hmm E=1/2 m*v^2. Suppose m is around 1500kg 20mph=8.94 m/s I believe all the units are correct, so multiplying that out yields about 60k joules of energy Terminal velocity is around 53m/s so assuming a 62kg human you get 87k joules of energy if you just went splat from an aircraft The first would assume you were between a car and a brick wall and you received all the energy which is an extreme case At any rate I suspect the 20mph one might be survivable as long as your thrown out of the way since your only getting a fraction of the available energy It could also easily be lethal or crippling.

We certainly have a good case for it here. Even if I could moderate that post, I have no idea what moderation to give it. I can't even decide if it should be moderated up for all to see or down. Perhaps a zero valued WTF mod?

Around twenty years or so is the period where you even begin to have the chance to detect long-term patterns. Why should your 23 years impress me? Not to mention that "Acceleration In Global Warming" and "global warming" are obviously two different things. Well, it's obvious at least to people who haven't flunked freshman-level calculus.

Right, regardless of the fact that the PE might or might not understand anything the actual engineer did.

I happen to know a Draftsman who works for an engineering company, he does ALL the engineering, and the guy signing the drawings can barely (if at all) read them, and most of the time doesn't even bother. If people actually knew that the guy with the piece of paper didn't actually do the actual work, they'd be freaking out. On the other hand, they should be grateful that they aren't.;)

Like making money pretending to be an engineer, those are simply, "illegal."

In the US, 'engineer' is a protected term. Aren't we still talking about the realm of the illegal here?

No, no it's not. Professional Engineer maybe, but it varies from state to state.

I was given the title "Field Design Engineer" back in the early 80s by a Fortune500 company, when I only had an Associate's degree, and was really a computer technician, and doing very little actual design. "Field" just meant that I worked at customer sites.

I'd say that Free Speech means that the government won't prosecute you because you say something. Prior restraint is an infringement on free speech, but imprisoning somebody after saying something is also.

I'm an EE. I looked into getting a license a few times, but nothing was relevant to the work that I do. The test seemed to cover things like electrical codes, power distribution networks and safety. Engineering is a wide field, the sample tests did not even touch on verilog, vhdl quantum mechanical or device geometry.

The field of engineering is way to broad for a single license.If your job is going to be doing dangerous things, or is somehow considered risky to the public, a license is a good to make sure you have the basic skills to do such a job safely.However if all your job is on a virtual environment, a license is just a waste of everybody’s time and money.An engineer is the job title that you do that covers a broad range of jobs, from creating software to driving trains.

I happen to know people who should be "engineers" but don't have the piece of paper to say they are, as well as people that have the piece of paper, that really shouldn't. Piece of paper is just a barrier to entry and doesn't indicate any real competency.

Once you realize that, you look beyond the paper for actual experience and proof of skill, which is what you should be doing regardless of the piece of paper requirement by the state.

Exactly this. For instance, in order to be a chef or run a restaurant kitchen in many places you are required to have a ServSafe certification. That serves a state interest in ensuring that public eateries know how to serve food that is safe to eat.

So you may end up with safe-to-eat food, but that doesn't mean it's any good.

In this case, the same people who determine if you get to call yourself an "Engineer" were intentionally violating safe and sensible engineering practices, resulting in vast amounts of property damage, disfiguring and life changing injuries to innocent people, and ultimately causing the death rate to rise. Why? So that some elected official's brother in law could make a shit ton of money off of some red light cameras.

So if we take that and fit it into your analogy, this would be like the state requiring

The NCEES does now have a Computer Engineering option that looks much more reasonable for those of us that are more on that side of things. Sadly Oregon requires references from three licensed Engineers to apply. I have yet to run into anyone that is actually licensed (heck 90% of my coworkers haven't even taken the FE), likely because the CE option is very new.

They do. In fact, the people he was criticizing, civil engineers who installed red light cameras in Beaverton then cut the timing in half for the yellow light, are not just labeled as public servants, but paid as such.

He is Mats Järlström from Sweden, earned a degree in electrical engineering from Sweden’s Ebersteinska gymnasium in 1980.

The crucial part of it is the way the law was written allowed overly broad abuse against anyone who called themselves an engineer while not registered in Oregon even if they are engineers.

The application of this law in this case is suspect because the lights generate revenue and his correction of a 1959 mathematical formula (which treats yellow lights as red lights) would have decreased revenue.

earned a degree in electrical engineering from Sweden’s Ebersteinska gymnasium in 1980.

You can earn an engineering degree in a gymnasium in Sweden? I though gymnasiums were non-trade-specific schools all through the Germanic world. They surely are around where I live. At best I'd expect strong math and physics background from a gymnasium graduate (which helps in this case), but not trade-specific education.

He has a degree but is not certified by the state of Oregon. Certification usually requires a degree some experience working under a certified engineer and an exam. I don't know if there are any states that don't require certification except when it comes to networking and telecommunications engineers.

They want lots of lovely ticket revenue and he demonstrated mathematically that they had rigged the lights such that it was not always possible to obey the light even while driving lawfully. That would cut into that ticket revenue and could even cause them to have to give some back.

People were hearing his message and starting to raise a fuss about it so they acted in haste to shut him up. Now they're going to be educated in the Streisand effect.

Lower taxes and increase fines.The federal and state officials look like saints for lowering taxes. While the cash strapped towns are the devils for strict enforcement and high fines to pay off their bills.

If the people doing these things can be stopped via probation and intervention before they graduate to more serious/violent crime, that's a good thing. Sending them to "crime university" aka "gang induction camp" aka state prison for 5-10 years is a stupid solution. The solutions are availability of educational opportunities to all, availability of mental health intervention, and keeping people out of jail when possible.

1% incarceration rate shows that our system is failing at what it's supposed to do.

If you don't think that your county/city government is doing the exact same thing (or something analogous) in your town, you are incredibly naive. Also we know from studies that red light camera's cause more accidents than they prevent (unintended consequence of people slamming on breaks at a yellow lights in order to avoid a ticket) Camera's at intersections do nothing but fleece the population of money.

I certainly do suspect that many local governments do that and other dirty tricks. Red light cameras are a frequent source of such abuses. It is notable that in places where the courts have ordered appropriate lengthening of the yellow light, the red light cameras quickly disappeared. Then of course, there are the convictions for bribes and kick-backs in Chicago.

Except that he actually did show mathematically that there existed a window where the yellow wasn't long enough to stop or clear the intersection before the red for a car obeying the speed limit. That may only be true of some of the lights or it may have only been true until a change was made to avoid backlash.

Nevertheless, his free speech was certainly violated and no plausible explanation of the behavior suggests good intentions.

Generally speaking? Because small-minded people in power love to push others around, just because they can. Doubly so when someone dares to calls them out on an issue within their two-bit little fiefdom.

Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.

Wasn't this basically what Ford did with the Pinto?

In order to send a stern signal to other companies which might be tempted to use the same reasoning, the courts' solution was to greatly increase C (damages awarded)...

Sure you can, but you'll be fined $500 for it. Not for calling yourself an engineer, but for walking around with an unlicensed erection.

If you are going to erect anything around here we need prior notification of said erection sent to the traffic commission, fire marshal's office, city council, engineering office, and public utilities board. Draft reports will have to be filed on traffic and parking, fire safety, property tax estimates, structural stability, and water and sewage requirements before the er

Except that he very clearly stated what his expertise was and does, in fact, hold the degrees he claims to hold. He phrased the traffic issue in terms of his expertise as "an expert in motional feedback (displacement, velocity and acceleration feedback) of powered speakers which includes the full understanding of motion of an object such as a loudspeaker cone (or a vehicle stopping or traveling through an intersection as in ORS811.260(4))"; he, then, provided an analysis of the issue framed by that expertise.

And his analysis was correct, so you can hardly say he doesn't have the expertise he claims.

Yea I don't think that was ever even a valid argument. The guy was most definitely knowledgeable enough and had the expertise to make the analysis. The only argument was if he was violating P.E. laws by claiming the title without having the certification in the state. Clearly the answer is no he was not now, so by all accounts he comes out ahead here.

Even I, as a person that thought he probably did violate those laws originally, can't say anything negative about the guy concerning this whole debacle. Th